


tell me your heroes and i'll tell you that you're mine

by CallMeBombshell



Series: in all these ways we come together [1]
Category: Batman (Comics), DCU (Comics)
Genre: M/M, Pre-Relationship, accidental date
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-22
Updated: 2013-08-22
Packaged: 2017-12-24 07:10:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/936886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CallMeBombshell/pseuds/CallMeBombshell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He’d been out for maybe two hours before he’d noticed his shadow, chasing across rooftops and down fire escapes, keeping up with his every move. Only instinct and a deep-seated knowledge of the man’s movements kept Tim from going on the offensive, instead letting Jason creep closer and closer until finally they ended up on the same rooftop, staring across asphalt tiling at each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	tell me your heroes and i'll tell you that you're mine

**Author's Note:**

  * For [defcontwo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/defcontwo/gifts).
  * Translation into 中文 available: [未曾开口未曾讲 / tell me your heroes and i'll tell you that you're mine](https://archiveofourown.org/works/949867) by [blurryyou](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blurryyou/pseuds/blurryyou)



> For my darling Sam, who shoved me head-first into Jason Todd and Tim Drake feels <3 and who gave me the idea for this fic and this series.

There’s a possibility that Tim has always been drawn to a certain kind of person. Tim won’t admit it, but there was a time when he was younger, when he’d maybe, just maybe, wanted to be Han Solo. There was just something about the way he wasn’t a clean-cut hero, the way he had shadows, the way he wasn’t perfect but still did his best to do the right thing, that little Tim had latched onto.

There might have also been a time, a few years older but still mostly a kid, when Tim realized he wasn’t entirely sure whether he wanted to be Han or kiss him (and if he ever thought about wanting to do more, well, that’s something he tried not to think about too clearly), but it was only ever for a moment, and if Tim was never too concerned with kissing anyone else, either, then he could write it off as hormones colliding with admiration and making things more confusing than they needed to be.

But the problem with looking up to fictional characters was that they were fictional, always slightly less real than you would like, so Tim set Han away in a corner of his mind with the other characters he’d learned to love, Aragorn and Picard and others less defined, and focused on the people he could see, could touch, if he ever got close enough. Batman was real, and Tim wanted to know both sides of him, masked and unmasked; more than that, he wanted to know Robin, the little circus boy who’d lost everything, only to be taken in and raised up to become a legend, the Boy Wonder at Batman’s side.

Then Robin left, grown up and gone away with another name in another city, and there was a new Robin, this one somehow more grounded, maybe, more real in a way that Tim could never properly describe. He’d started taking pictures long ago, when Dick Grayson still wore the costume, trying to capture the grace of his movements across Gotham’s skyline; now, when he snapped pictures of Robin, the boy seemed to hover slightly in the shadows, his movements quicker, more precise, less showy than his predecessor.

And then that Robin was gone, Tim’s Robin, and Batman was lost. Jason Todd died and Bruce Wayne became nothing but a cover for the man behind the cowl, Tim’s heroes reduced to caricatures of themselves, two-dimensional shadows of their former glory.

So Tim went digging back into the dusty corners of his brain, drew out Han Solo again, drew out those stories that he’d loved as a kid, the ones that made him feel bigger than he was, the ones that made him feel brave, made him feel like he could do anything. He pulled out his old photos, the ones hidden in a shoebox under his bed, Batman and Robin, both Robins, lit by Gotham’s lights, and dared to dream of heroes again.

  
  


The first time they end up spending time together isn’t anything official so much as it’s just the tail end of a long night of patrolling and they’re both hovering in that weird space between exhausted and wired. It’s a side-effect, Tim’s learned, of spending so much time awake at night; his body has gotten it’s signals all messed up, too used to adrenaline, fight-or-flight in the darkness, and now when he’s out at night, his body is telling him it’s time to run, even when he’s going on nearly twenty-four hours awake and he’s got class early the next morning and won’t have time to sleep.

Tonight he’s near the middle of town, skirting the edges of the upper east side, out where the city proper begins to give way to half-built suburbs, decades old and mostly turned to rubble. The houses are full of squatters, mostly, some dealers and some more hardened criminals looking for a place to hide out. It’s usually quiet, though, just people trying to live their lives as best they can, so the Bats largely leave it alone, provided there’s no trouble.

Tim still isn’t entirely sure how he ended up with Jason on this patrol. He was supposed to be out here alone tonight, Dick off playing Batman on the south side, Batgirl doing her thing in the north end, Black Bat flitting around on the west side, and Jason skulking around the Hood’s neighborhoods on the northeast side like always, leaving Tim to patrol through the middle.

He’d been out for maybe two hours before he’d noticed his shadow, chasing across rooftops and down fire escapes, keeping up with his every move. Only instinct and a deep-seated knowledge of the man’s movements kept Tim from going on the offensive, instead letting Jason creep closer and closer until finally they ended up on the same rooftop, staring across asphalt tiling at each other.

Jason’s not wearing the Hood’s helmet tonight, just the red domino covering his eyes; probably, Tim thinks, because he’s out of his territory and trying not to draw attention to that fact. He’s still wearing the jacket, though, brown leather full of scratches where it’s taken a beating for Jason in the past. Tim can just see the shirt under it, too, over the body armor he knows Jason’s wearing, red bat splashed across his chest; for all that Jason tries to pretend he’s not part of the family, he’s marked himself just like the rest of them.

“Nice night, don’t you think?” Jason says, smirking, like he hasn’t been following Tim for hours.

“What do you want?” Tim asks. He keeps his voice neutral; he’s never certain how to deal with Jason, how to act or speak. He’s aware, always, that this is a man who’s tried to kill him, who’s hated him with a kind of passion that Tim’s not certain he’ll ever truly understand. But somehow, Tim still can’t look at him without seeing the boy he’d been before, the boy in the pictures hidden under Tim’s bed.

Jason shrugs. “I’m just out for a stroll, baby bird,” he says, smirking wider when Tim can’t stop the frown on his face; he hates that nickname. “It’s all quiet in my neck of the woods,” Jason goes on, tucking his hands into his pockets. “So I thought I’d drop in, see what my favorite creatures of the night are up to.”

“Creatures of the night?” Tim repeats, one eyebrow arching. “Really? That’s what you’re going with?”

Jason shrugs again. “Hey, if the mask fits. You’re all Bats, aren’t you?”

Tim doesn’t have a response for that. Instead, he takes a moment to just look at Jason. He hasn’t had much opportunity to actually get to know the man; the few times he’s really seen him, there’s always been a fight, Jason versus them, them versus someone else, Jason versus someone versus them. He’s never actually had a chance to just...talk to Jason, stand across from him without bullets or blades or fists flying at their heads.

He wants to ask Jason why he’s there, why he’s following Tim, why not Dick. He wants to ask why he’s left his own neighborhoods, why he’s not out patrolling his own streets. He wants to ask why he let himself be seen, why he came close enough to talk to, why he isn’t hiding in the shadows like he usually does.

Instead, what comes out of his mouth is, “High or low?”

Jason blinks. “What?”

Tim shrugs. In for a penny, he thinks. “I’ve still got a few neighborhoods to patrol through here before I can head back. You’ve followed me this far, you might as well help out. So, high or low? Rooftops or streets?”

Jason’s quiet for a long moment, and Tim’s almost worried he’s going to refuse, going to say no and slip away into the dark again. But then Jason shrugs, huffing out something that might be a laugh, and says, “You’re the bird, you take the heights.”

Tim can’t help the tiny smile that spreads across his face. “Fair enough,” he says. “Head up Third and across to Mulholland, then down towards Creek Drive. That’s where I usually circle back.”

Jason grins, white flash against the dark. “Meet you at the other end,” he says, and then he’s gone, up over the edge of the roof and down, boots crunching slightly when he hits the alley below.

Tim watches for a moment, the dark shadow of him moving towards the street, quicker and more graceful than his towering bulk would suggest. Jason turns the corner and Tim shakes himself, steps back, and makes a running leap towards the next building over. There’s no sound except for his own breathing, the whisper of his boots as he leaps from rooftop to rooftop, eyes scanning for movement, listening for any sound of trouble.

Jason’s shadow never leaves his periphery.

  
  


The old drive-in theater is still mostly-intact; the concession booth is boarded-up and empty, and the screen itself could use some repainting, but it’s been kept largely free of graffiti and damage. The old projector broke years ago, but someone found an old one somewhere else, hooked it up to a generator, and now, on some weekends, the locals play movies back to back until morning, a little slice of the easy life for the people who can’t afford easy all the time.

The screen sits just off the end of Creek Drive, a giant white specter in the middle of the park, houses spread out around it. It’s always been Tim’s turning point, the last structure of his patrol out here. Past that there’s only abandoned mini-mansions with graffitied walls and cracked, drained pools in the backyards. There’s never been much point in patrolling out that far, and sometimes, if Tim’s lucky, he’ll come up on Creek in time to catch a bit of whatever movie the locals are showing.

There’s a particular house near the screen, built halfway up a hill in the shadow of an oak tree which has grown large enough to crack the pavement of the driveway it was planted next to. The tree is large enough to hide most of the roof from view, even with the light from the screen bathing the park in shifting colors.

Tim sits there sometimes when he comes through, just to watch the people; they bring blankets, some of them, while others still come in their cars, pulling up to the speaker posts even though the old system stopped working ages ago, the sound now provided by a set of slightly-scratchy stage speakers mounted clumsily on the sides of the screen. It’s a nice break in Tim’s usual routine, a nice reminder that, while he may be out looking for criminals and other ne’er-do-wells on the streets, not everything that happens in this city at night is bad.

The roof is as empty as ever when Tim gets there, so he settles into his usual spot, back against the chimney, and lets himself breathe for a moment. They’re playing Star Wars this week, the original cut, judging from the quality. Tim smiles. He’s never been much for pop culture, usually too preoccupied with school, or with going to functions with his parents, or chasing Batman across the city. But when he’d had time, when he’d needed a break or he’d been sick, Tim had settled back into his pillows in his bed and turned on his TV and let himself get lost among stars and spaceships and aliens for a while.

Now, Tim sits back on the roof and smiles as C3PO and R2-D2 bicker onscreen about which way to go across the sands of Tattooine. He’s lost Jason somewhere back near the start of the ‘burbs, but he’s not worried. Jason will turn up sooner or later, and in the meantime, Tim’s going to sit back and just breathe for a while.

It’s quiet tonight in Gotham; he’s got time to enjoy this.

  
  


Jason shows up just as Greedo does, dropping down next to Tim with a quiet thump just as Greedo starts his ill-advised attempts to threaten Han.

“Haven’t seen this in years,” Jason mutters as he settles back, arm brushing against Tim’s. “Always liked these movies.”

Tim swallows against the sudden tightness in his throat, resists the urge to move his arm just to feel the way his sleeve catches against Jason’s. “Yeah,” he says after a moment. “Yeah, me too.”

They’re quiet after that. Tim finds himself darting his gaze sideways to watch Jason. Jason’s eyes are on the screen and his lips are moving, silently mouthing the words along with the scene. Tim mentally shakes himself, forcing his eyes away again. So Jason knows this movie by heart, so what? There’s no reason why that should be enough to make Tim’s stomach flip, or make his throat go suddenly dry.

On the screen, there’s a flash and Greedo goes down, face-first onto the table. Jason snorts quietly and says, smugly, “Han shot first.”

And Tim can’t help the short bark of laughter that erupts from his mouth, or the grin that breaks across his face, so he turns away, hiding it in the folds of his cape across his shoulder.

(He doesn’t see the way Jason turns to look at him, eyes wide and slightly stunned, or the way it takes him a moment to turn away, something soft and shy lurking in the corners of his smile.)

  
  


They stay for the whole movie even though they both know they should be getting back, should turn around and head back into the city proper, back to more familiar streets. But it’s quiet, nothing going on in the neighborhood, nothing coming across on comms, no sound of trouble anywhere, and it’s been so long, Tim thinks, since either of them caught a break.

So they sit, shoulder-to shoulder, still in their costumes, and watch Obi-Wan be awesome and Vader be terrifying and Luke be heroic. Tim smiles and smirks while Jason continues mouthing the words as ‘3PO and R2 snark at each other, as Vader cuts his one-liners, and Han and Leia flirt.

Tim’s unclasped his cape, letting in fall in a puddle behind him, and Jason’s slipped the domino from his face at some point, the better to watch the movie with his own eyes, Tim thinks. It’s weirdly normal, the two of them sitting so close, and it almost startles Tim to realize how relaxed he is, sitting on a roof with a man who may or may not hate him on principle, watching a movie he hasn’t seen since he was a kid. He wonders, briefly, whether this is as weird for Jason as it is for him, but when he turns to ask, his gaze gets caught on the tiny grin tugging at Jason’s lips, the faint wrinkles at the corners of his eyes that Tim can see now are from smiling.

Tim doesn’t think he’s ever actually seen Jason smile. He turns away again without a word.

  
  


They slip away when the credits start rolling, silent as shadows across the roofs and back towards the glow of the city proper on the horizon. Tim almost expects Jason to say something, to make a joke or mock Tim for wanting to sit around watching movies rather than continuing his patrol. But Jason stays silent, the faint smile still on his face and the way his gaze keeps cutting to Tim the only indication that he’s maybe thinking about it at all.

They keep their silence all the way back up through the streets until they reach the streets they both know by heart. It’s strangely comfortable, this silence they’re sharing now, broken only by the fall of their feet across the rooftops, their breathing nearly in synch when they pause on ledges or railings. Tim’s gotten used to a certain level of chatter when they’re all out, but even Dick has been quiet tonight, hardly a murmur across the city on the comms.

Jason stops on a roof just at the edge of the Hood’s territory; Tim barely thinks about it before he’s stopping, too, crouching down at the edge of the roof and staring out at the city below.

“Guess this is where we split, baby bird,” Jason says, gesturing over his shoulder with his thumb.

“Right,” Tim says. He fights the urge to clear his throat; it’s funny how it’s somehow gotten awkward now, instead of back on that first rooftop, or the one they sat on for hours without talking. But it’s here on this roof where he wants to ask Jason if he really has to get back, wants to ask if they can just hang out here for a while. He wants, again, to ask why Jason followed him to begin with, why he agreed to run patrol with him, why he sat with him on a roof and watched the movie and smiled wide and bright when Luke blew up the Deathstar.

But he can’t ask any of those things, can’t get the words past the tightness in his throat. So instead he just nods and turns to go. He’s across the roof and getting ready to launch a line so he can swing away when he hears Jason’s footsteps behind him. Tim turns, watches Jason take two more steps before he stops. Jason seems too far away now, thirty feet between them, but he’s looking at Tim with bright eyes, domino dangling at his side from his fingertips.

“I’ll see you soon, baby bird,” Jason says, smiling slightly. “Maybe we can catch the next one, next time.”

And then he’s gone again, back turned, disappearing over the edge again as Tim watches, breath stuttering in his chest.

“Right,” he says, feeling a smile creep across his face. “Next time.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> edited slightly because sam linked me this awesome [map of gotham](http://batmangothamcity.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/gotham-city1.jpg) and once i'd seen it, it bugged me that my geography wasn't right XD


End file.
